


La petite mort

by bookoftheazuresky



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Belial-adjacent warnings, Lobelia-adjacent warnings, M/M, Serial Killers, Spoilers for Lobelia, no actual sex or murder on-screen though, rated M because these characters are definitely not T
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:22:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19339099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookoftheazuresky/pseuds/bookoftheazuresky
Summary: Lobelia stumbles across an enticing potential victim. But what he picks up is way too much to handle.





	La petite mort

**Author's Note:**

> a.k.a. don't pick up and try to murder primal beasts.

The Tower’s pactbearer walked into town with a light step and a smile on his lips, fresh off the last airship scheduled to land for a week. The setting sun gleamed through the threatening clouds and off of the pendant on his chest, redder than blood.

Lobelia had learned to be circumspect with his hobby, and the habits from before he became the Tower’s pactbearer still remained. After all, if he caused too much of a fuss, the Enforcers might get involved, and they were led by one of the Luminary Knights. Lobelia had confidence in his own powers and that of the Tower, but he was only a single person. If he wished to travel, he needed access to the networks of airships that crisscrossed the skydom. Be too free with his identity, and he could become embargoed and trapped. Be too careless and the Twice-Crowned Archer might put an arrow through his eye. Where such exalted entities as the Seven Luminary Knights and the Ten Eternals might have ignored a single killer, they would not ignore Lobelia as he was now.

Therefore, his targets should be picked exactingly, his performances remain beyond the realm of what could be attributed to human intervention. This town, carved into stone terraces between two great mountains, would be terribly vulnerable to destabilizing the earth above it. And without any airships scheduled, there would be little help for the few survivors. Lobelia could pick them off at his leisure, leaving only a few remaining as camouflage for his own exit. Easy. Simple. And satisfying.

Though not quite as satisfying as trapping a whole village and letting them know they were hunted, making them listen to the sounds of his performance to heighten their anticipation and sensitize them to give a better performance themselves. Sadly, such opportunities were few and far between. Ah well. He’d have to content himself.

Lobelia shrugged his hood off as he walked into the bar, preferring to remain dry for as long as he could rather than stay outside. The sound of the rain was like the dropping of crystal beads, dulling other noises even to his sensitive ear. He would have to take it into account for his recordings- there were ways to filter it out, but he was loath to sacrifice quality of sound. He hummed a little as he tossed the problem back and forth in his mind.

He might as well eat, if he was going to be waiting for the rain to subside before he acted. A quick exchange with the proprietor set him up with a table by the window and a bowl of stew. Good enough if he was going to be hiking around in the dark as planned. He ate and watched the rain gradually slacken off over the course of an hour or so, idly drawing up ways to enhance sound pickup. His solution of planting focuses before causing disasters allowed him to record his work without worry, but they didn’t have the range or sound differentiation he desired.

“Bientôt,” he promised himself as the remaining light died and the lamps were lit in the streets outside.

And then- a _voice_ caught his attention, a man’s voice, rich and low with a timbre like velvet and sin. Lobelia couldn’t help but stand, searching for the source. The bar, he identified, walking towards it and pausing as he entered the larger space of the taproom. Now where-?

A chuckle with that same alluring timbre and Lobelia’s eyes picked him out, a dark shape leaning languidly on the bar, legs crossed as he exchanged some small comment with the bartender before leaning back on his stool to survey the room.

What a rare jewel, Lobelia marveled, unable to help moving closer. Such looks! Such a voice! He was Lobelia’s height or thereabouts, with a build both strong and elegant, broad of shoulder but not unpleasantly bulky. The curve of his wicked mouth suggested humor, the arch of his brows intelligence, the carmine of his eyes…Lobelia suppressed a shudder. It reminded Lobelia of things he found _most_ pleasant.

Those delightful eyes took in the tiny shiver that Lobelia couldn’t quite hide and sharpened with interest. “See something you like?” the man asked, angling his body to display his many assets to advantage. He had clearly dressed with such an idea in mind, black and indigo coat buttoned only under the bust, perfect collarbones and defined musculature bared by his lack of a shirt.

“Oui.” Lobelia swiftly rearranged his plans for the evening. “Much that I like.” He continued, sure that such a man received many compliments regarding his looks, “But, truthfully, it is your voice that caught my interest.”

“Oh?” As he’d thought, the uncommon compliment seemed to please. “Is that so.”

That dark-toned voice, low and inviting yet resonant…oh yes, Lobelia liked it quite a bit.

“It makes me want to hear you scream,” Lobelia confided. A risk, certainly, but instinct told Lobelia that this man would appreciate boldness. Besides, who would anticipate _how_ truthful he was being?

The risk paid off- the man looked at him with fresh interest. “So eager, so confident. I _do_ like that in a man. Can I get a name to go with that proposition?”

“Lobelia.” He included a slight bow. “I am a magician of sound, thus my educated ear. Perhaps you might return the favor, s'il vous plait?”

“It’s Belial,” the man purred.

~

With the advent of Lobelia’s pact, he had mostly set aside his previous methods of hunting. Why take disappointing victims one by one when he could make a satisfying meal of entire towns, reveling in the sounds of death and destruction of so many at once? But Lobelia wasn’t opposed to getting up close and personal with someone _special_ , an aperitif before the main course. A person whose quality he could _savor_ when he played back their dying moments. Lobelia hadn’t lied, he really wanted to hear Belial’s voice- just _his_ voice- raised in that moment of perfect agony. The rest of the town could follow after.

Audiomancy had many useful side benefits for a killer, and controlling what people heard was high on the list. It was simple, in the end, to lure Belial outside, away, to a space where he could control what sounds escaped. The man moved with a grace as pleasing as his face and form, apparently unworried that Lobelia had malicious intent. And why should he be, he wasn’t exactly delicate or fragile.

“You know, for someone so eager before, a chase gives off the wrong impression,” Belial commented as Lobelia came to a halt. They were surrounded by the walls of empty shops now, the district empty after the night had fallen. “Not that I don’t enjoy a bit of chase and catch, you understand, but your proposition sounded more like you wanted to be the aggressor.”

“Quite. I just wished for a private space to entertain.” Lobelia turned on his heel and waved a hand, sealing sound within his barriers. “Now, about that screaming-“ He snapped his fingers.

Lobelia was, at this point, a connoisseur of death cries. He’d anticipated something sharp and harsh and lovely, a sound of shock and agony beyond bearing for his wonderful collection. But that wasn’t what he received. Belial made a shocked noise, yes, but there was no voice in it at all, just a breath, a cough, harshly stifled. Like the pain that had felled countless others was within his tolerances. The man stumbled but didn’t lose his feet, a mouthful of blood spattering the ground. After a moment, to Lobelia’s everlasting shock, he even stood back up, hand going to his lips.

“Good grief, you really have no idea of foreplay, do you?” Belial shook his head, wiping away the blood tracing his cheek like tears. His ears and his nose were bleeding, but as Lobelia watched the flow was starting to ebb. The mottling of dark bruises was disappearing too, returning to the fair and flawless state it had been in before Lobelia had struck.

The man rolled his shoulders back, clearly not particularly inconvenienced by the damage that Lobelia had done. He continued, voice only a little frayed about the edges, “And here I was, ready to have some fun this evening. You got me all excited too! I do like some pain play, but you’re all about your own gratification. What a disappointment.”

Lobelia gathered himself, brain racing, and smiled winningly. “Je m'excuse, I shall try harder to satisfy you.”

“Nah, I don’t think you can. I’m all about taking it slow.” Belial returned his own smile, one that sent a shiver down Lobelia’s spine with the promises it contained. “So I think that _you_ should get on your knees for me.”

The words bypassed his mind and dropped him to the ground without any input from Lobelia whatsoever. A charm as thick as syrup and just as sweet filled his limbs and bound him in place. Alarm and anticipation in equal measure started to rise in his breast and filled his stomach with butterflies.

Belial strolled over and lifted Lobelia’s chin with a finger. He looked untouched now, and indulgently amused, as if Lobelia was a child that hadn’t quite managed to finish what he’d started. He pressed a thumb to Lobelia’s bottom lip and the magician thrilled with a pleasure as intense as any conche he owned. Lobelia’s eyes fluttered closed involuntarily and he moaned without shame.

“Lesson one,” Belial said, and Lobelia was lost.


End file.
